“Unrated” means it was not submitted to the MPAA for rating. That’s what the ‘X’ rating used to mean, before it became synonymous with pornography. NC-17 is an actual MPAA rating, but as stated above, won’t be given without the film being submitted.

… this was my first thought also…. Unless the contention is that it WAS submitted ??? and was decided to be release UR (Un-Rated) version…

Just to be clear, to further this insertion of Factual process….A film is usually submitted for ratings, the association sends back a preliminary rating with “content” reasons for rating (often included with Rating in many movies/trailers as additional advisory for Parents deciding on whether or not to have children view), and they have the option then to edit and resubmit for a changed final rating. (see the MPAA.org site) If you want to know all about the (Left wing) BS that goes on behind the scenes buy/rent This Film Is Not Yet Rated documentary – and I do recommend seeing that 2006 release.

Other than wanting to be clear on how the system works… I have no opinion as I have no idea what film is and this free publicity Erick is giving them will only boost ticket sales at the Art-sy (Liberal enclave anti-everything) type theaters that would show it.

I think I saw Census Bureau predictions back in 2005 that if the current growth patterns continued that Texas would pick up 4 seats. However some of the more recent estimates have indicated that Texas might only pick up 3. The recession has had the effect of reducing the internal migration from the North to the South, so I expect less change in the number of seats after the 2010 census for each state then the estimates in 2005.

when I thought that a point of nessa’s rewrite of F-M 78 was rewriting FM 78 and that didn’t make much sense because that means rewriting a road. NC-17 does sound like a US House district, but that would mean a major migration from the North to get to that.

“A Film by Lars Von Trier”

All you need to know. LVT is a critics darling/enfant terrible in certain hyper-progressive film circles, and while some of his earlier movies had some interesting moments, he hasn’t made anything watchable in years.

I won’t even bother going into detail. Suffice to say there will almost no interest in this film outside of NYT, kos & Slate, and only a handful of small arthouse theatres & college campuses will show it. As the poster above stated, a tiny few “mainstream” theatres will show the very rare, occasional NC-17 (Henry & June for example), but none will show an unrated. And as others posted above, the “unrated” DVDs are pure marketing gimmicks unrelated to theatrical releases.

Certainly this film is garbage that shouldn’t exist, but that’s where we are. LOL starring Willem Dafoe with his even worse recent ouvre & Charlotte Gainsbourg. Of course! Who else COULD it “star”? I guess Monica Bellucci wasn’t available.

I understand the outrage, but trust me on this one. If we ignore it, it really WILL go away, and quickly. The big corps that run Hollywood & the Oscars won’t touch it with a ten-mile pole. Let’s not do anything to bring this to the attention of one extra curious 18 year-old who won’t know any better and will waste $8.

Speaking of curious, how concerned was everyone here over the explicit violence in Passion Of The Christ & Saving Private Ryan, historically accurate & necessary to the films integrity as it may have been?

any sort of patriotism, any christian being placed in a good light.

and any southerner who is not a hopeless redneck hick, a religious nutjob, or an evil manipulator.

Oh yeah, and while it is OK to have a black criminal you have to balance it by having the wise old black man with impeccable judgment, high morals, and he has to show the ignorant white hero how to do things.(preferably played by Morgan Freeman.)

Everything I have heard about this film makes it sound like one director’s very self-indulgent attempt at personal catharsis, only he’s hoping to dupe the occasional poor soul into paying to witness it.

I really don’t care that it’s unrated (not to mention the MPAA’s ratings have no enforcement power in law anyway), but I’d point out that the film’s reputation precedes it. It’ll get shown at a few art house places, and that’s about it. This isn’t going to be a national sensation; it’s just the creative equivalent of a grand mal seizure.

More power to Lars von Trier for making the film, but there’s nothing that seems to indicate that I’d be willing to do him the favor of watching it, so I won’t.

http://www.slate.com/id/2233304/

“Lars von Trier freely admits in interviews that he makes the same film over and over: a huis clos melodrama in which a passive, vulnerable, often mentally unstable woman is gradually driven crazy, and sometimes killed, by the gaslighting of a sadistic man. There’s nothing wrong with an artist returning obsessively to the same set of themes and images. But von Trier’s fetishistic re-enactment of psychological and physical torture scenarios seems to grow less, not more nuanced with each go-round.”

“The viewer hovers between genuine shock—whatever your tolerance for on-screen gore, what He and She do to each other’s and their own bodies is sickening to watch—and the eye-rolling resignation one might feel at a teenage son’s gothcore concert. You win, Lars—if I’m the bourgeoisie, consider me épatée.”

I can certainly see why Dafoe wanted to be in this, but not Gainsbourg, or any other actress of any profile at all. Has to be tweak the bourgeoise/thumb your nose at traditional (esp American) values. What else could it be? She can’t need the money or be out of offers, and LVT is notoriusly hard on actresses (Nicole Kidman wouldn’t work with him again) so there’s not even the “work with zee great artiste” thing.

And I can’t understand understand why more liberal women don’t see through the “he’s a great artist or pro-choice politician” excuse the clowns always use to skate by on their maltreatment of *individual* women; cf Clinton, Polanski, Packwood…

Imagine if Mel Gibson made a movie where a lesbian college freshman is gang-raped by some frat boys and it makes her “see the light” so by senior year she’s homecoming queen engaged to the captain of the football team.